It happened again (shiver)

January 30th, 2012 at 02:57 pm

When I was about 22 years old, I had recently graduated from college and was living on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. One night my girlfriend and I (she had gone to the same school I had) were at a bar and met a really cute guy. My friend ended up dancing with him that night, but I ended up dating him for a while. He even lived with me for a short time when I was lonely after moving up to southern Vermont a few years later for a newspaper job.

At the time, I probably didn't exercise the best judgement about men. I liked him because 1. he was handsome and outdoorsy and 2. he drove the cutest little MG convertible, a stick shift, which he let me borrow or drive on occasion.

However, it was just a total mismatch. I was a young college grad, a bit brainy but adventurous and finding my way in the world, and he was a carpenter with a really pronounced Boston accent.

Things ended up badly after I decided to break things off with him and made the mistake of telling him I wanted to date other men. He twisted my arm up behind my back in a painful way while we argued in a restaurant parking lot. He said he wanted to hurt me the way I had hurt him. I thought my shoulder was going to pop out of the socket. Someone from inside the restaurant called the cops when they heard me scream, he took off, the cops arrested him for attempted battery with a deadly weapon (his car), yada yada yada. I've told this story here before.

Anyway, that was a long time ago. I'm in my 50s now. Around 5 or 6 years ago, he somehow tracked me down. My phone number, anyway. I don't think he knows where I live except that it's Connecticut. So every year since then, on Christmas, birthdays, sometimes Easter, I'd get a call from him all cheerful and wanting to talk about old times.

I really want nothing to do with this guy. I told him I was married just to get him off my back. Didn't work. I told him in no uncertain terms not to call back. I hung up on him several times, only to have him call back and act all hurt. One time, he happened to call when my then boyfriend was over, and I put him on the phone just to scare him off.

So this past year, when Christmas and then New year's went by with no call from him, I figured I was finally home free.

Wrong. He called today. The last person I expected in the middle of the day, as I was finishing up some freelance work. He says, hey, how ya doing, in a real friendly way. I said, Who is this? And when he said, "Mike," I said, I told you not to call me again, incredulous that, in fact, he had. He said, oh, I've been having dreams about you and I wanted to see if you were ok. I said I was fine and quickly ended the call.

I'd thought about reporting him to the police, but to do that, I'd need to have his phone number. He gave it to me before, but I never bothered to write it down becus I knew I would never want to call him back. Each time this happens, I say, well next time, just ask him straight out for his phone number and then once he gives it to you, tell him you'll give it to the police if he calls again. But he caught me by surprise today and so of course I forgot to do that.

I also considered that even if I did have his number, it might not be such a good idea to hand it over to the police, because if the police called him, they would have to identify themselves as "X-town Police Dept." Which would reveal the name of my hometown.

While it's easy enough these days to find someone's location online, I don't think he uses a computer. He's always worked as a carpenter and roofer, so it wasn't part of his vocabulary.

I need to look up how to block a given phone number. That's probably the best thing. Should have done it a long time ago, but the calls, while unsettling, are infrequent enough that I don't have that code you dial near the phone at any given point in time.

I sort of feel sorry for him becus often when he calls he sounds down and depressed, but gosh, if you want to dig out of a depression, the worst thing to do is reminisce about people who used to be in your life a good 30 years ago; better to find someone new!

He acts like it's perfectly fine to reconnect with someone from your past, but he seems to forget that's ONLY all right if the other person wants that too!

it gives me the creeps.

On a positive note, I'm feeling much better again today and finally getting rid of the cold. I also was able to knock off 2 of the 5 freelance jobs I got from my client: a blog summarizing all the positive housing news in the press of late, and a press release, probably the 5th one I've done for a new single family home subdivision that's been selling very well since they began construction early last year. They've been building it out in three phases, about 10 homes in each phase. Each time I do a press release, I need to come up with a new news hook for the release; otherwise, it'll just sound like an ad and the paper might not publish it.

Tomorrow I've got to bring my car in to get the back brake pads done. I usually go the dealer, but decided to try a mechanic my mother really likes. Could be cheaper than the dealer, but my experience last time I went elsewhere than the dealer was that the local car repair shop was just as pricey. But I'll give this guy my mother uses a shot. But to do so, I've got to drop it off, have my mom pick me up and then hang out at her place until the mechanic calls with his prognosis and price. I sure hope it doesn't take all day. At least at the dealer,there's a pretty comfortable lounge/waiting area where you can get some free coffee, watch TV or work on your laptop, if you have one. Perhaps that's what the dealer's high prices are paying for. We'll find out.

Tomorrow at my mother's, I hope to begin work on the 3 remaining assignments, 2 standalone bios for 2 execs and a write-up about the division as a whole, to be used both in-print and online. They're trying to go head to head in certain states where they're not just up against other real estate companies. In those cases, no big deal, they just gobble them up and take them over. But in certain cases, the competition works more like consulting companies, so my client, a real estate/mortgage/insurance/relocation company, needs to position itself as more of a marketing agency with the resources of the brokerage behind them.

I was having a little trouble conceptualizing everything so I'm glad I called to discuss all this with the marketing director there. They usually just give me stuff with not much direction, which is fine with me, and is only something I think I can do because I worked on staff for this company back in 1988-1990, and again for 2 years around 2000, so we have some history together. But every once in a while, I need to ask a few questions.

9 Responses to “It happened again (shiver)”

After someone calls you and after you hang up you can push *69 and it will tell you the last phone number that called your line. This work with a land line phone. It may cost you $1-$2 on you next phone bill.

The creepiest part is that he acts as though he hasn't already heard you say "Don't call me ever again". Eeew! Don't feel sorry for him; he doesn't deserve it. Just wondering, have you ever refered to him wrenching your arm during one of these calls? Has he forgotten he did that? Or does he think you deserved it and therefore should not hold it against him?

My first car was an MG Midget. Super cute, but a mechanical nightmare.

Petunia, it was a bad memory. I think once I brought it up and there was a lot of protesting and denials on his part. I never brought it up again. I suppose he thinks it's ancient history. I don't think he realizes how that affected me.

You're right about MGs. Fun to drive but mechanically a mess. Just like the Fiat Spider.

Yuck! It's probably nothing, my sister and I have both had exes who sporadically (and creepily) get back in touch with us, but don't really do anything else other than call or try to stop by our parents'. But it definitely doesn't bespeak a healthy mental state (both of ours had mental illness to varying degrees).

It's a hard situation because you don't want to escalate it by getting him upset, and I think it's hard to get someone in real trouble with the police until a situation DOES escalate.

If you think his only connection to you is your phone number, maybe just change it and make sure your new one's unlisted?

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